Reed Hastings, owner of the nation's largest ski resort Powder Mountain, on Wednesday announced it is making major changes to its lift infrastructure and organizational vision in an effort to reduce crowds and generate income.
In a letter addressed to the Powder community, Hastings, who also co-founded streaming platform Netflix, announced plans to install three new chairlifts, two of which will replace the Timberline and Paradise lifts. The third lift will be installed up the Lightning Ridge, allowing resort visitors to access terrain that had previously only been reachable after a 15-minute hike.
"This summer, we will be investing $20 million in three public lifts: A hi-speed detachable quad upgrade on Paradise, replacing a fixed-grip quad, a fixed-grip quad upgrade on Timberline, replacing a 50-year-old fixed-grip double, [and] a new fixed-grip quad from the base of Timberline to the top of Lightning Ridge, opening up vast new lift-served intermediate and expert terrain, and enabling people to ski from Timberline down to Sundown," the letter read.
Going Semi-Private
While all three new lifts will be open to the public, the Mary's Lift and the Village Lift on Powder Mountain's eastern flank will be converted to private lifts open only to homeowners. A third homeowners-only lift will also be installed on Raintree. These lifts will no longer be accessible to the public by next year.
"Powder has been struggling financially, so I stepped in a few months ago to invest and find a sustainable path for staying uncrowded and independent. To stay independent and uncrowded, we needed to change, and we didn't want to join the successful but crowded multi-resort pass model (ie, Snowbasin) or sell to a conglomerate (ie, Vail)," Hastings said.
"We are dedicated to running a sustainable business, supporting our wonderful team, and contributing to this incredible community," he added.
Hastings noted in the conclusion of the letter that, despite shifting to a semi-private resort, the price of night skiing at the resort will be reduced from $39 to $19 "to make it more accessible to our community."
Hastings, who stepped down as the CEO of Netflix in January, became a minority owner of Powder Mountain in April. He later ascended to become the resort's majority owner after a $100 million investment in September, per Forbes.
